Quote de jour
"If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write."
                                                                                                                  Stephen King
And one more because I'm in a generous mood....

"Art is the triumph over chaos."
                          ~John Cheever

Okay, so I'm lounging in my secret garden reading the Times, soaking up the sun hot today. I'm feeling lazy from full moon insomnia and last night's excesses at the first alfresco dinner party of the season. The air is sweet with honeysuckle, and I've decided my favorite aperitif this summer will be Lillet http://www.lillet.com/ and my favorite new (cholesterol be damned!) cheese is delice de bourgogne. What pried me away from this reverie? The chilling stats of a 2008 study by Technorati, a search engine for blogs.  Since 2002, approximately 133 million blogs were started. Who knows how many were started since 2008? (Mine just being one). Of the 133 million blogs only 7.4 million have been updated in the past four months. Let's face it, if you haven't updated your blog for months, it's gone to the big cyber graveyard in the sky. Scary, but true. So, off I'm in from the garden and ready to post because I have no plans to go bye-bye; not with my yummy growth rate of nice peeps like you!

Some fun cover copy and pix.

Woody Allen felt he was too old to play himself in his latest film "Whatever Works" and got his ultimate doppelganger, Larry David from "Curb Your Enthusiasm" to play him. I can't wait for the film to open. It'll be good to have Woody back in his old stomping grounds of Manhattan.


I agree, just about everything we know about Iran is wrong. Newsweek did a bang up job correcting some of the myths. Sampling pastries brought (smuggled?) back from Iran by an Iranian friend last night helped, as did photos of the beautiful country.

This week, I've gobbled up a few YA novels.  They are the fast food of books. Two hours later, you're hungry for another one. With two teen-aged step kids, I like to stay abreast of teen culture. Plus, shsss...I'm plotting a YA book of my own. How could I resist this one with the same first two words of my novel?

I haven't started I loved, I lost, I Made Spaghetti  by  Giulia Melucci. It's touted as the Eat, Pray, Love with Italian recipes. Probably not a good idea to read on an empty stomach.

For a writing with real substance, may I suggest  the new Cheever Collected Stories & Other Writings by John Cheever. I'm embarrassed to admit, I've never read him; this icon of American literature, this Chekhov of the suburbs, until this week. The deceptively narrow book is as heavy as a brick, and I'm not talking about the content which is dense and satisfying. There are over a thousand pages printed on silky paper almost as thin an an onion skin. Sadly, I won't have time to read every short story, but the one's I've enjoyed forced me to slow down and lap up every word. Every so often, I'll circle back and re-read a line over and over, marveling at his skill. Writing short stories is harder than it appears, and Cheever is a master. His short essay on page 996, "Why I write short stories." is worth the price of admission to Cheever Land.